recompense (for all my crimes of self defense)
by Silvershadowe
Summary: (-title from Mirror in the Bathroom by The English Beat.) Life changes after the tunnels. Whether it's a good change is still in question. (Picks up right after the end of season 2, excluding the Snow Ball epilogue; Steve-centric genfic, also posted on AO3 under the same name)
1. how I dearly wish I was not here

Of all the monsters he's faced today, Steve thinks the blue Camaro is the worst. He glares at it, his vision fading in and out, spiraling in odd directions no matter how hard he blinks. It looms forebodingly in front of him as he tries to formulate a plan of attack.

"Steve? You good?" comes a concerned, preteen voice from somewhere to his left. Steve doesn't bother looking; he knows it'll only somehow make his head hurt worse than it already does.

Another young voice, this one exasperated, demands, "Is he okay to drive?"

"I'm driving?" he whines, the phrase coming out as a question against his will. The adrenaline he'd gained from their tunnel sojourn is all but gone, and the idea of so much as getting into the car is horrific.

"I can drive," comes another voice, this one female and apprehensive.

Those words in that voice make him stop dead. The adrenaline returns, flooding through his body as he remembers a terrifying, scream-filled journey that nearly made his heart give out. "I'm driving," he says again, this time, with authority. No matter how much he wants to not take the wheel, letting the red haired gremlin with no license go in his stead is infinitely worse.

Steve lurches forward, stumbling to the driver side door of a car that is decidedly not his and throwing it open. He tosses his bat into the space between the driver and passenger seats and practically falls next to it. He then tries to recall how to operate a vehicle.

The door next to him slams and he jumps, turning to see Dustin giving him an anxious smile and holding up a huge piece of paper. "I'm on navigation," he says, shaking out the map.

Fuck, he has to drive the car and follow directions, too?

Steve steels himself and puts his feet on the pedals, but finds himself kicking something hard. "The hell…?" he mutters, looking down.

"Shit!" Dustin cries, and reaches down to the pedals to retrieve what looks like a brick.

No, he's right: that is, in fact, a brick.

Steve decides to parse through the fact that there is a brick in the car when he can think without feeling like there's a jackhammer in his skull, and puts the key in the ignition.

The car roars to life. Steve jumps.

"You're sure you're okay?" Dustin asks.

Steve fucking guns it in response.

The kids all scream as they're jolted to one side, and the sound almost makes Steve's head split open. That, in turn, does not help him focus on the road.

Dustin yells for everyone to shut up, and surprisingly they do. "Take a right here," he says, once the peanut gallery has quieted, as though Steve isn't concussed to all hell and nothing's wrong.

It takes a while, but eventually, Steve finds some sort of swerving equilibrium where he drives about four miles per hour but manages to stay on the road – maybe not in the correct lanes, but on the road.

He's disproportionately happy when the Byers house comes into view, considering both times he's been there it ended in blood. It looks like they're the last ones to arrive, because Jonathan's car is parked in the driveway, and next to it-

"That's Hopper's car!" yells Mike as Steve eases the brakes.

The moment the car stops, he puts his head against the steering wheel, numb with relief and ready to sleep for a thousand years.

He hears the doors swing open, then shut. The kids are shouting, and he can't tell if their voices are reverberating because of the wide open space, or if it's just his head.

"Steve?" says Dustin, still in the passenger seat but echoing nonetheless: it's definitely just his head. "C'mon, we should go in, everyone's here."

Everyone's here. Steve's addled brain takes that moment to realize that everyone includes Nancy.

Nancy.

They're done. Contrary to popular belief, he's not stupid – or rather, he's gotten real good at recognizing 'electricity,' and the sparks are flying between her and Jonathan.

He's surprised when the only emotion that rises to meet him is guilt. He's not angry, just…

He tries to search for the words, but it only makes his headache worse.

"Steve?" Dustin asks again, and this time, his voice is tinged with fear.

"'M fine," he slurs. "Go ahead." His job was to keep the kids safe. His job, it seems, is done for the night.

"I think you should go inside," Dustin says, still sounding scared. Still sounding distorted.

"No," he growls, because now all he can think of is Nancy, Nancy and Jonathan and how he can't face them, not right now. Maybe it's immature, but he just… can't. "I need t'get home."

"It's fine, you can just call your parents and tell them you're staying over someplace," Dustin chirps, as if this solves everything. As if Steve's parents have stayed home for more than a week in the past year. He barks out a laugh. Absently, he notes the cuts on his face stinging; feels something thinner than blood drip off his chin.

"I'm gonna get someone," says Dustin, panicked. "Stay right here, okay?"

"No, no, no, Dustin, don't," he says, eyes opening wide as he forces himself to sit up.

The kid looks back at him, one hand on the door handle, brow furrowed.

"I'm fine, I just need to get home," he says, and is astounded at how clear the words come out.

Dustin looks between him and the house, conflicted. "Come in? For a minute? You don't have to stay," he pleads, and Steve cracks.

"Okay," he sighs, reaching for his bat and pushing open his own door.

Standing is about as fun as he expected it to be. Dustin runs to his side, puts an arm around him. "Just to the house, okay?" he says. Steve can see him glance at the white knuckle grip he's got on his weapon, but the kid makes no comment. They shamble forward and inside.

Everyone is splayed out across the living room floor. Eleven is already leaning against Mike, her eyes fluttering, a contented look across her face. Will has his head in his mother's lap, and Joyce is carding her fingers through his hair. Jonathan is watching from the kitchen, arms crossed.

The kids are in the middle of explaining their part of what happened; Mrs. Byers and Hopper look two different shades of furious when the Party recounts their plan.

"You went into the tunnels ?" Hopper rumbles, glaring at Mike.

Wheeler doesn't back down, just purses his lips and declares that "it was the only way to distract the demo-things."

"Demo- dogs !" Dustin shouts from the doorway.

As if on cue, one of the creatures tumbles out of the refrigerator and onto Jonathan's sneakers. He screams, stepping back.

For a moment, no one makes a noise. Then Mrs. Byers says, voice low and dangerous, "What is that thing doing in my kitchen?"

"Shit!" Dustin says. He turns to Steve and props him against a wall. "I need to save a major scientific discovery. Stay right here," he commands, serious and fierce.

Steve quirks an eyebrow. "Go save science, kid," he mumbles, and Dustin marches into the kitchen.

Voices rise, Dustin shouting that the thing needs to be studied, Joyce yelling that it can be studied somewhere that isn't her refrigerator, Lucas calling that he knew this was a bad idea, and—

Nancy, in the middle of it all, playing intermediary.

Steve feels his chest tighten. It's all too much: Nancy, the sound, even the soft lights are like ice picks to his eyes. He needs to get out.

No one has noticed his position against the wall, too caught up in the kitchen pandemonium to see. He takes advantage of that and clumsily slips out the door.

The stairs almost trick him: he nearly faceplants off the porch, but manages to catch himself on a piece of wooden scaffolding. Steve takes a deep, steadying breath, and searches for his car.

…

Steve doesn't find his car.

It's with a soft and helpless groan that he remembers leaving it at the edge of the woods before following Dustin to the junction.

Slowly, he turns to look at the Byers' yard; recalls the keys left in the ignition of what must be Hargrove's Camaro.

And puts himself behind the beaten wheel again, because one, he needs a way home, and two, fuck Billy Hargrove.

The drive back to his house is worse than the drive to the Byers'. It's longer, for sure, and there's no one giving him directions. After a few aimless near-crashes, Steve stops the car in the middle of another oddly unfamiliar road and cries. He's hopelessly lost in a town he should know better than the back of his hand.

Going at a breathtakingly slow speed, Steve finds his house after what feels like —and most likely, is— hours. He parks the car in the middle of his yard and staggers to the doorway, surviving on pure muscle memory by now.

The keys are another challenge entirely; his hands are half-numb, knuckles bruised and split from smashing against Hargrove's jaw, and they shake so bad the keys sound like jingle bells. He props his bat against the door and fumbles for the correct one. After a good six tries, he gets the key in the lock. He snatches up his weapon and opens the door.

The lights are off, thank God.

Steve eases the door shut behind him, not bothering to lock it. The only thing he can think about is shutting his eyes and going to sleep. He drags himself into the living room and collapses onto the couch, not ready to brave the stairs. In the back of his mind he realizes that he's lost his bat somewhere between the door and the living room. The part of him that's still trapped in those tunnels wants to protest; panic.

The rest of him is too tired to care.


	2. kind hearts don't grab any glory

(chapter title is from Kids in America by Kim Wilde)

Thin, watery light streams through the window, drawing creatures in shadow across the ivory carpet. The light attacks Steve's eyes the second he opens them, like knives pushing through to his brain. "Fuck," he croaks, and tries to bat the light away.

Nothing happens, predictably.

Sitting up is such a daunting task that he lays there with his eyes shut for another hour. It takes that long for him to remember how to close the blinds, or that there are even blinds to begin with.

Steve pushes up from the couch, but his wrecked hand crumples when he puts weight on it, and he falls back, the world upending and spinning around him. Steve tries again, pushing up from his elbow this time, and manages to force himself into a sitting position. He puts his head in his hands, breathing deeply and focusing on anything but the pain. He feels too hot and too cold at the same time, and suddenly, he's hyperaware of his jacket, rough against his skin and radiating a sickly warmth. Frantically, he tries to escape it. One arm gets stuck in its sleeve, and he stops abruptly, exhaustion overtaking him. He sits there, trapped in his own jacket, until he regains the strength to pull it all the way off.

He's had sports injuries before, and gotten in fights before, but this is different. This is a whole new level he never wanted to reach. Idly, he thinks, something's wrong , and almost laughs because that's the understatement of the year.

Steve cracks open an eye to search for the offending window that's letting the torturous light in. Dimly, he notes the empty bottle of Jameson seated in a chair in the corner of the room, a remnant of the night Nancy told him it was all bullshit.

That's not a memory he needs right now.

He finds the window; it's somewhere to his left. Steve gets to his feet, and has to grab the top of the couch in order to stay that way. He stumbles forwards and ends up falling against the window. From that position, he turns and reaches for the string that controls the blinds. It refuses to stay in his hand, and he has to concentrate in order to grab it and pull it downwards.

The blinds snap shut, and he slides down to the floor, sighing in relief as the light dims to a dull gray.

He must pass out, because the next thing he knows, the doorbell is cutting through his brain like a bullet, the tone echoing around his skull. He groans.

The doorbell rings again, and he covers his ears against the noise.

One more time, and he remembers what a ringing doorbell means.

Steve pulls himself up, scrabbling for purchase at the window ledge. The room around him capsizes, and he blinks hard to bring it back to fuzzy normal. Steve starts towards the door, but runs straight into a chair instead. The empty whiskey bottle that was in it hits the hall's wood floor and shatters on impact. The sound makes him jump, and he trips over the chair, falling into the wall and swearing a blue streak all the while.

The ordeal wakes him up enough to stagger to the door and open it.

Four kids are crowded on his doorstep.

…

They stand in the driveway for a good ten seconds, frozen. An unexpected, but unanimous hesitation grips them as they look up at the veritable mansion that is Steve Harrington's house.

Finally, Max lets out a shaky breath and says, "Okay."

It's like an electric shock, spurring the four of them into motion. The boys unceremoniously drop their bikes and follow her to the door. "Okay," Max says again, and presses the doorbell.

No one answers.

"Maybe he's asleep," Lucas suggests as Max presses the doorbell again.

"We should probably just…" Mike starts, nodding towards their bikes.

"No!" Dustin cries. He eyes the windows and says, "One more time."

Max frowns deeply. "One more time," she agrees, and jams her thumb against the doorbell.

They wait.

"You know what, we should--," Dustin says, but stops as something inside crashes.

There's a long string of curses and more crashing, and suddenly, the door is open. "The hell're you doin' here?" slurs Steve, squinting down at them.

He looks awful, the cuts and bruises of the previous night even more pronounced in the daylight; his face is a mottled painting of yellows, purples, and blues. Steve leans heavily against the doorframe, and considers the kids with unfocused eyes.

For a moment, they are stunned back into silence. "We, uh," Max begins, "we wanted to make sure you were okay. After, um. You know…"

Steve snorts out a laugh. "Your stepbrother kicked my ass?" he asks, the words running together. He runs a hand through his uncharacteristically messy hair.

"Um. Yeah. That." Max says in reply.

"Well, I am gr- reat ," he answers. "So can I go back to--?"

"And also thank you!" interrupts Lucas. He seems surprised to hear himself speak, but continues nonetheless. "You, uh, stood up for us, and, um. Thank you."

"Yeah, don' sweat it, kid," Steve says. He looks like he's about to keel over, moments from sliding down the doorframe and to the floor.

Dustin says, "Are you sure you're okay?"

Steve glances at him. "I'd like to go back t' sleep, but yeah," he says.

"You really shouldn't--!" Dustin begins, but gets cut off.

"We should go," Mike says. "We'll just…" The four begin to move backwards, nearly tripping over each other on the crowded stoop.

"Mm-hmm," Steve says, and as soon as it had opened, the door slams shut.

They all jump at the sound.

On the way back to their respective bikes and skateboard, Max says, "That went well."

"D'ya think he's really okay?" asks Dustin, his expression betraying his concern. "He looked like shit."

"I dunno," Lucas says in response. "But it's not like we can do anything."

"You're not supposed to sleep with a head injury," Dustin whispers, to no response.

A somber quiet falls over the four.

"Okay," breathes Max, and they wheel into the street.

…

Once the kids are gone, Steve falls against the door and tries to make his breathing normal again. It's gone too thin, but too slow, and he has to concentrate in order to fix it. The world is spinning again; he buries his aching face in his knees.

Every second the pain seems to mount, sawing into his skull with each desperate breath. He regrets slamming the door with every fiber of his being, because now his ears are ringing with no sign of stopping.

When Steve was eleven, his parents deemed him old enough to be left home alone, and promptly took off on business trips. At first, they hired nannies, babysitters, but as time went on, they either forgot or decided he no longer needed supervision. They returned at least once a month, but that trickled down with every passing year, until he found himself celebrating Christmas alone. The last time he's seen them was three months ago, but he's grown used to living without them.

Right now, he misses them desperately. His father's voice, quietly comforting. His mother's fingers, brushing across his forehead and smoothing back his hair.

His already stuttering breath catches when he realizes both memories are from before he turned ten.

Steve wraps his arms around his knees, hugging them tight to his chest. The pain is warping time; he has no idea how long it is until a pounding at the door startles him from his position.

He's confused – the noise came from behind him; made the wall shake. With a start, he turns to see the door, having forgotten his position.

Whatever hit the door hits it again, this time calling, "Open up, kid!"

The words are distorted; they bounce around the room without Steve registering their meaning. He pulls himself up by the doorknob, answers the door. Sunlight pours into the hall. Steve squints and manages to discern the visitor's identity: "Chief Hopper?" he says. Or at least, he thinks he says it. He can't be quite sure.

The chief's face visibly changes when he catches sight of Steve, but Steve doesn't notice, he's too busy trying to remember where he left his bat. The chief means danger, and danger means fighting, no matter how much he'd rather just collapse on the floor.

"Yep," says the chief, frowning at him. "It's me."

…

Hopper wishes he wasn't so bent on saving everyone. If it weren't for his damn hero complex, he'd be at the cabin, spoiling Jane rotten and making sure she was every bit as 'okay' as she said she was. He'd be pretending he wasn't scared out of his mind whenever he saw blood on her face and that he didn't still feel the fear of losing his daughter whenever he looked her way.

He'd be spending every damn minute with his girl, because hell if she didn't deserve everything he had to give and more.

But no, the Wheeler kid and his friends just have to show up and ruin his afternoon with their story about their ill-fated journey to the Harrington house.

So instead, Hopper is standing on the stoop of said house and praying to whatever god is out there that he won't have to make a trip out to the hospital.

Then the door swings open and Hopper decides there is no god, because shit, this kid can't even stand on his own.

"Chief 'opper?" croaks Steve Harrington, squinting at the watery sunlight coming through the door.

"Yep," sighs the chief. "It's me."

"'S something wrong?" asks Steve. He looks behind him, his expression miserable. "I can…"

The kid starts to stumble back inside, but he barely makes it to the staircase before his knees buckle. Steve grasps the banister and sinks to the bottom step. Hopper takes this display as an invitation to come inside. "Jesus, kid. How the hell did you drive last night?"

Steve ignores his question and reaches somewhere to his right. He blinks slowly. "It's over there."

Hopper looks to where the teenager seems to be gesturing and sees a bat filled with nails and coated in blood, at odds with its position on the shining hardwood floor.

"Nothing's wrong," says Hopper, "No monsters or anything; everyone's safe."

The chief crouches next to the kid; ignores his screaming back and knees. Glazed brown eyes look back at him. "Safe?" asks the kid, his voice reminding Hopper of Jane whenever she encounters a new word, and damn, if that doesn't hurt.

Hopper nods, and Steve lets out a breath. He leans against the banister in relief.

Briefly, Hopper examines his surroundings. The hall is dark; the sole source of light is the front door. An upturned chair lies on the threshold of the living room, and if Hopper isn't mistaken, there's broken glass around it. "Where're your parents, kid?" he asks, almost to himself.

Steve just shuts his eyes and spits, "Gone."

There's a pause as the chief processes this information, and the many things that 'gone' could mean. Deciding he can deal with the absent Harringtons later, he says "Hey, how about we go get you cleaned up?" 'cause if this kid isn't concussed to hell and back, the earth is fucking flat.

Steve manages to shake his head while pressed up against the banister. "Tired," he says.

A sudden flash of panic makes Hopper shake Steve by the shoulder. He's no doctor, but he does know that sleeping with a head injury risks never waking up. "Hey, hey, let's stay awake," he says.

He receives an annoyed glare and moan in response. Hopper sets his jaw, looks Steve up and down, and scoops the kid up bridal style.

Luckily or unluckily, Steve is too confused to put up much of a fight, so getting him into Hopper's cruiser isn't difficult.

On the way to the hospital, Hopper growls question after question at the kid to keep him awake. He tries to be satisfied with the muffled groans he receives in response: it's better than nothing.

It's not until he asks, "Hey, kid. Who's the president?" that nothing is exactly what he gets.

Hopper feels his heart skip a beat, his breath catching. "Hey. Hey, " he says, but no response. He glances into the front mirror and sees that the kid's skin has gone waxy pale, eyes shut. Hopper can't tell if he's breathing.

Hopper leans on the gas, speed limits be damned.

Steve's loaded onto a stretcher the moment he's dragged into the ER, nurses already swarming. Hopper watches helplessly as they strap an oxygen mask on his face and wheel him into another room, the sterile smell of the hospital already making the chief remember things he'd rather keep buried.

But then a nurse is asking him about next of kin, and shoving paperwork into his hands, and he can't check out because there's no one else in town over the age of fourteen who knows that Steve Harrington is just hanging on.

Fucking hero complex.


	3. livingalifethatIcan’tleavebehind

Susan has always dreamed of flying.

For as long as she can remember, her nights have been spent in the air, wind brushing at her face in gentle strokes and carrying her far, far away. The dreams are a brief respite from her everyday life; an escape that leads her somewhere quiet and soft.

If Susan had her way, she thinks she might spend more time asleep than awake, but there's always dinner to make, a room to clean, a husband to please.

Susan wishes she were asleep the day Billy gets arrested.

She stands on the stoop of the house that Neil said would be a fresh start and feels like a wraith, immaterial and just barely present. He's yelling, she knows, but she's learned that when Neil yells, it's better to imagine the cool breeze of the night sky than to get in his way.

She has one hand firmly clenched around Max's shoulder. Her daughter hasn't yet learned to retreat into herself like Susan, and as much as that terrifies her, Susan can't help but feel a small spark of pride that Max has her feet planted so firmly on the earth.

She gets it from her father.

Max gets a lot from her father, quite frankly. Her eyes are so like his that Susan can barely look at her directly. Sometimes it seems as though Cary is giving her that accusing look from seven states away.

Max doesn't look like Cary now, though, not while Neil is pushing at the cop on their front lawn. Susan glances at her daughter and sees a mirror.

Billy is pressed against the sheriff's cruiser, two cops holding him down, and Susan can see that he's laughing. With the sheriff between him and Neil, he can get away with it. She feels a pang of an emotion she won't let herself recognize when she realizes that this is his flying; that the cuffs around his wrists are meant to be restraints, but he's more free than he's ever been.

Billy doesn't stop laughing when he's thrown into the backseat of the cruiser, or when the car drives off. Somehow, Susan thinks her step-son's laughter is louder than her husband's cursing.

Neil slams the door when he marches back inside; grabs the top of a nearby chair and stands against it, fuming. Susan follows him inside with quiet footfalls, leaving Max on the front stoop with the sheriff. "Neil," she says softly. She's unsure if he heard her for a moment; he doesn't move an inch.

"Didn't I teach him," Neil says suddenly, and Susan startles, "about respect and responsibility ?"

There's a pause before Susan realizes he's waiting for an answer. "Yes," she says.

"Bastard didn't fucking listen, he never fucking listens, and now he's in the fucking clink ."

"I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding," Susan tries to say, but she's not really sure at all. Sometimes, there's a fire in Billy's eyes that reminds her of Neil when he's been drinking, and Susan knows not to trust that.

"A misunderstanding?" Neil barks. "How stupid do you think I am? That kid's a fucking menace, he's a fucking degenerate. No concept of respect. He's like his mother."

Susan bites her lip and thinks of the stars.

She looks behind her, to the open doorway. The sheriff is talking to Max, his voice quiet but his face carefully schooled. Max has her arms firmly crossed, her eyes are shining. "How bad is it?" she's asking.

Susan knows she should be there. She should have her arms wrapped around her daughter, should be the one speaking to her in that quiet voice.

But Susan also knows that she should be with Neil. She can't abandon him, not now. Susan needs her husband. Without Neil, she is nothing, because before him, she was nothing. That's what he's told her, time and time again, and she believes him a little more each time. "In sickness and health," he says. "That's what you promised, isn't it?"

Max will be okay, she tells herself. Max is strong. She's so like her father, who didn't need Susan, didn't need anyone.

Max has her feet planted on the ground. She doesn't need to fly away to feel like she's in control.

On her second wedding night, Susan Hargrove-nee Mayfield- nee Carter had dreamed of flying, just as she did every night.

She'd woken up to Neil running his fingers through her hair, smiling softly with a gentleness he kept reserved for her. She'd smiled back and told him about her dreams, and he'd chuckled. "Don't worry, Susie," he'd said, a curl of auburn locked in his grip. "I'll keep you down on earth."

He'd kept his promise.

She keeps the one she made on her wedding day. Susan takes a step further into the house. Max catches her eye, briefly, Cary's incredulity cutting through Susan until she breaks the stare.

She leaves her daughter outside and goes to her husband.

…

Steve quit the baseball team after the second practice of junior year. The first time he held a bat that season; the first time he felt the weight of the wood in his grip, he knew he was done for. After his first at-bat, he stepped off of home plate shaking with an adrenaline that Jack Goring's lazy pitching in no way warranted and realized there was no way he could make it through the whole year.

The instinct that had made him Hawkins High's star player, the voice that yelled now! when the ball was exactly where it should be, had turned against him. His ability to judge a pitch as something worth swinging at had warped into a desperate urge to HIT IT. Somewhere in the strobing Christmas lights and the panicked screams of the Byers house, Steve had lost his ability to swing a bat with an energy that was anything less than manic.

But it was fine; he'd been okay with it. Hawkins High was a small school, their athletics programs chronically underutilized and obsessively overvalued. So yeah, he wasn't great at basketball in the way he'd been great at baseball, but he was good enough to be the best on the team, and to keep the popularity that came with athletic stardom.

And he was still the King of Hawkins High, and he was still Nancy Wheeler's boyfriend, and for what felt like the first time in years, he'd been happy.

He could ignore what happened in November, could wash it away like the black blood he'd spent a panicked afternoon scrubbing off of the nail-bat.

As long as the bat was locked in the trunk of his car and his parents didn't hear him wake up screaming on the rare occasion they were home; as long as he didn't go near the pool in his backyard, as long as Nancy still loved him, everything was absolutely fantastic.

Then Nancy got spiked punch all over her sweater and told him it was all just bullshit before running off with Jonathan Byers the very next day.

Then Dustin freaking Henderson told him he had to get the bat out of the trunk of his car, because there was another monster to hunt.

And suddenly there was a bus to reinforce and children to protect and Steve never really got a chance to acknowledge how much everything was starting to suck before Billy fucking Hargrove almost killed him on Jonathan Byers' living room floor.

But now, trapped in his uncle's horror of a house with his horror of a cousin, Steve has all the time in the world to acknowledge it: everything fucking sucks.

Steve doesn't know when his first emergency contact stopped being his mom and started being his Uncle Jack, but whenever it was, Steve resents the change.

Not because of any deficiency on his parents' part – it's fairly practical, Steve gets it, even if it does sting a little. No, the problem lies in the fact that Uncle Jack's family makes Steve long for his empty house, a feeling he never thought he'd experience.

Uncle Jack seems to have no concept of 'beaten half to death,' and just treats Steve as he always does – shoulder checks, hair-ruffling, and all. When he had insisted that Steve stay with him, he'd accompanied the offer with a slap on the back so hard, Steve had been too disoriented to protest.

By contrast, Aunt Alice is ridiculously high strung, going so far as to put plastic covers on every item of furniture in the guest bedroom for fear of Steve getting blood on anything.

And of course, the worst of all is his cousin Troy, who somehow became even more of a brat in the time since Steve has last seen him. Maybe it's time, or maybe it's that in the two weeks since Steve met Dustin, he's realized that being a shitty person can't be explained away by age.

"Was your brain really bleeding?"

Steve presses the back of his hand to swollen eyes and fights the urge to throttle his cousin for the umpteenth time. "Yeah," he mutters, hoping that Troy hears the frustration in his voice and leaves.

"Bullshit," Troy says, either spectacularly dense or spectacularly indifferent. "Your brain can't bleed. That's not how it works. Besides, how would they even know?"

To be honest, Steve's a bit hazy on that subject himself. In his defense, he's a bit hazy on pretty much everything the doctors told him. "Take it up with the hospital, dipshit," he growls.

"Man, I can't believe you got your ass handed to you again," Troy steamrolls on. "Do you just do this every year now?"

Jesus Christ , Steve has enough things to worry about without being harassed by a literal child. Unfortunately, Aunt Alice decided that someone needed to 'keep him company,' and that someone had to be Troy. She had not consulted Steve on this decision.

Steve's car is still at the junction a few miles away, and his keys are buried in his living room carpet somewhere. Even if he had the coordination to drive, he would have no way to physically do so.

"Can't believe I used to think you were cool."

He has no means of escape.

As if answering his silent pleas, there's a knock at the door.

Steve drags himself into a sitting position, plastic coverings crinkling beneath him, to see Alice, her lips pressed into a thin line, standing in front of Chief Hopper.

"Steven," she says, "The sheriff would like to have a word with you."

"Oh," Steve says as Hopper steps into the room. "Okay."

As soon as Alice is gone – with Troy in tow, thank goodness –, Hopper pulls up one of the covered armchairs and slumps into it. "How're you holding up?"

Steve shrugs. "Could certainly be worse," he says. "I'm still breathing."

"That's not a high standard, kid."

Steve gives an easy smile that was a lot easier before the bruising. "Honestly, I'm just glad you got my cousin out of here."

Hopper snorts. He looks around the room; makes note of the plastic, but doesn't comment. "Yeah, he seems like a real charmer." Hopper's gaze stops on Steve, a long intense stare that makes him fidget.

"Chief –"

"I'm gonna level with you, Harrington. The kids told me what happened."

Steve frowns. That doesn't come as a surprise; he knows Hopper was the one who drove him to the hospital, knows the kids were the ones who sent the sheriff to his house. "What about it?" Steve asks.

"I need to know if you want to press charges."

The words take a moment to compute. "What?" he says in the meantime.

"I've already spoken with Joyce and Lucas Sinclair. They just want this mess to be over." Hopper sighs. "I have Hargrove at the station right now. It's up to you whether he gets off with a warning or goes to court."

Steve imagines he looks something like a -- rather beat-up -- fish at that. " Court? " he sputters, because in a world where monsters could kill you at a moment's notice and a lab just outside of town experimented on children, the idea of legal proceedings doesn't even seem real.

Hopper's gaze doesn't waver.

"I'm not going to court, chief." Steve scoffs, "And besides, from what the kids told me, he knows what he did." On one of his many visits to the hospital, Dustin had been more than happy to describe how Max had used Steve's bat to threaten her step-brother where it counted. Normally, Steve would object to any of the kids touching his bat, but he really couldn't bring himself to be mad about this case. "He's not gonna do it again."

The chief gives him one last, long look, then nods. "Okay." He stands up; replaces the chair. "Warning it is, then. Get well soon, kid."

Hopper has one hand on the doorknob when "Wait –!"

The chief turns around.

Steve tries to school his battered face into an abashed expression before he asks, "Can you do me a favor?"

Hopper raises an eyebrow.

"Any chance I could get a ride home?"


End file.
